Paul Rowland

Paul Rowland is the Senior Resident Director for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs in Indonesia. Since arriving in Jakarta in 2003, he has overseen an extensive portfolio of programs to strengthen legislatures, develop political parties and broaden citizen participation. In 2004, he managed the Institute’s election processes program and witnessed Indonesia’s landmark elections, including the world’s largest-ever direct presidential poll.

Before moving to Indonesia, Paul directed NDI’s Serbia program from the Institute’s Belgrade office where he trained civil society and political party activists preceding the fall of the Milosevic regime, and later worked to strengthen government institutions with a new reform administration that came to power in 2000. While resident in the region, he also trained democratic activists in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary and Montenegro.

Immediately before joining NDI in 1997, Paul was building a practice as communications consultant with private and public sector clients including the government of British Columbia in his native Canada where his professional political experience dates to 1984. As a field organizer, he worked for the New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP) in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Saskatchewan and the Yukon Territory. During a 12-year period, Paul managed numerous federal and provincial-level campaigns across Canada on behalf of the NDP. Also during this period with the NDP, he acted as a fundraiser, membership recruiter, convention coordinator and candidate.

Paul also spent several years working on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, first as a legislative assistant and later as a chief of staff to members of parliament where he managed legislative strategy, constituency relations, research projects and external communications. He lives with his family in Jakarta.